


Found My Thrill

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [40]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Stargate Atlantis, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - High School, Friendship, Getting Together, M/M, Opposites Attract, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24601963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Seventies TV Shows prompt:Any, any, happy daysIn which three Jocks decide to reach out to a Nerd, a Greaser, and a Beatnik. (Or: the Author goes completely off the rails and has fun with her OTPs.)
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [40]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610332
Comments: 35
Kudos: 103
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Found My Thrill

**High School Somewhere In America, 1950s**

Everyone at Rodney’s table was wide-eyed, watching as one of the Jocks came sauntering over with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his letter jacket. They’d been keeping to themselves like they always did, so Rodney didn’t think there was any retribution heading their way. But with Jocks you could never be sure.

“Hey.” 

“Hey,” Rodney replied, since John had been looking at him.

John Sheppard. Co-captain of the varsity football team, liked to race his cherry red Chevy down Blackman’s Road on the weekends, had a head full of crazy cowlicks that not even the best pomade could tame. Not that Rodney paid attention to things like that.

“You’re in the rocket club, right?” John asked. 

“President of the club, actually.”

“Cool. So, uh. I was wondering if you could help me. You know. With some of that physics stuff.”

Rodney exchanged a look with Radek. John Sheppard wanted a tutor? Sure, he was a Jock, but he was also in AP math. He wasn’t stupid. Neither was Rodney, and he wasn’t about to waste an opportunity. 

“Yeah. Yes. I mean, I can help.”

John’s lips quirked up in something that was almost a smile. “Cool. Meet me after school in the lab?”

Rodney just nodded, afraid of fumbling his words again.

After John rejoined his own group, Rodney’s was abuzz.

“Wow,” Radek said. 

“He’s a dreamboat!” Helen said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Like Ricky Nelson!”

“It’s probably a prank,” Peter said sourly. “Why else would he ask you?”

Rodney figured there was a fifty-fifty chance of things taking a turn, but he was willing to risk it.

*o*o*o*

Danny sat on the bleachers behind the school, smoking and watching the idiots running around the track, an endless, pointless loop. In particular he watched Steve, co-captain of the football team and Big Man on Campus. His feet hardly seemed to touch the ground.

Nothing out of the ordinary there. Danny was always watching Steve. The unusual part was Steve peeling away from the others and running up to the top of the bleachers where Danny was sitting.

“Those things aren’t good for you, you know,” Steve said.

Danny inhaled and blew a cloud of smoke at him in return. Steve was undeterred.

“Don’t you think you’re taking this Greaser thing a little too far?”

“Says the King of all Jocks,” Danny retorted.

They’d been friends, once. When they were both dumb kids who didn’t know any better.

“Listen, Danno. I –”

“It’s Danny. I don’t go by that stupid nickname anymore.”

Steve sighed. His white tank top was soaked with sweat and sticking to his chest. “Cool it. I don’t want to fight.”

“Then why are you here?” Danny leaned back and stretched out his legs, trying to look like he didn’t care.

“I was hoping you’d do me a favor.”

Danny raised his eyebrows at that. What kind of favor could a Greaser do for a Jock?

“I’m having trouble with an English paper,” Steve clarified. “Maybe you could help me with it? I know you know a lot of big words.”

He sounded sincere. Danny knew he should say no. Greasers and Jocks didn’t mix, unless it was on Blackman’s Road for a drag. But maybe it wouldn’t be bad, having Steve owe him a favor.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“I appreciate it. Sincerely.” Steve flashed him a grin and ran back to join the other mindless gazelles that continued to circle the track.

*o*o*o*

Blair sat in the corner of the library, jotting down ideas in his journal. He had a lot of ideas – for songs and poems and social change. Sometimes he wrote stream of consciousness, sometimes he wrote letters to his absent mother, letters he couldn’t send because he had no address to send them to.

No-one usually bothered him. His classmates treated him like a fream. But then someone pulled out a chair and sat at his table and he found himself looking at Jim Ellison. In the hierarchy of school, Jim was at the top. He was a Jock _and_ a Soc.

“Hi?”

“You’re Blair, right?” Jim asked, and Blair was surprised Jim knew his name. He was used to being called Hairboy and Shorty.

“That’s me.”

“We’re in History together. With Ms. Worsham.”

Blair just nodded. Of course he knew they were in class together. Jim sat one row over and three seats back, and he never seemed to pay much attention, which didn’t seem to negatively affect his grades.

“Thing is, there’s no way I can pass the next test. Maybe you could give me a hand?”

Blair frowned. “You want me. To help you.”

Jim leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You really seem to dig it. History, I mean. Maybe you can make it less boring.”

No-one had ever asked Blair for help with schoolwork. Already his mind was racing with ideas and his hand clenched around his pencil.

“I can do it. If that’s what you want. I know a lot of great mnemonic devices that could help you, you know. Simple stuff like, ‘In fourteen-hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue’. And more detailed ones, like –”

“Save it for the study group, chief,” Jim said amiably.

“Group?”

*o*o*o*

They were the talk of the school, the so-called Study Group. They ate together at lunch and were often seen at Arnold’s sharing a big plate of fries and passing around notebooks after school and even on the odd weekend.

The Jocks, the Nerd, the Greaser, and the Beatnik. They shouldn’t have had anything in common, but somehow they became friends. Rodney could often be found in the auto shop, tinkering with John’s Chevy. Steve got Danny to try out for the baseball team, and it turned out he was really good. Jim went to Blair’s poetry slams, and they started writing songs together.

The whole idea of it was kookie, but it caught on until that year there were no more cliques, not really. Just groups of kids who’d taken a chance on finding common ground with people outside their usual sphere. And when the entire Study Group showed up together at prom, all of them stag, no-one thought it was weird.

Those were happy days.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Title is from the song [Blueberry Hill by Fats Domino](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQQCPrwKzdo), which was mentioned more than once on _Happy Days._ Also, Elderwitty and I were discussing how similar the boys in my various fandoms were, and that was fresh in my mind when I saw this prompt and started thinking about all my boys in high school in the 50s. No plot, just me having fun.


End file.
